Great start for Glacier

BOZEMAN - It hit right at the end of warmups for the Glacier Wolfpack.

Moments before the first serve of Thursday's opening round match of the Class AA state volleyball tournament, a member of the Wolfpack took a look around the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse, then walked up to head coach Christy Harkins and announced "it just hit me. This is state!"

It took a few minutes for the Wolfpack to get past those jitters - it had to recover from a nine-point first-set deficit.

But Western AA's No. 1 seed rallied to sweep Billings Skyview 27-25, 25-17, 25-16.

It is the first state volleyball tournament victory in Glacier's four-year history.

"First win. Glad to get over that hump and move on to the next goal," Harkins said.

"It feels really good," said junior outside hitter Lexy Boschee.

"We needed to win a match at state," she smiled.

But the Wolfpack struggled in the early going.

"We weren't ready to play. We felt like we were," Boschee said.

"But I guess we let the nerves get the best of us. We weren't communicating," she said.

The coach wasn't worried, though.

"We've been off a long time. It's been a long break.

"I didn't think we were playing poorly. We were passing well. We just weren't going offensively."

But offense can be a fairly easy fix.

"So that didn't worry me," Harkins said.

The three straight missed serves were frustrating, she admitted.

"That's ridiculous! But that is a fixable error, too."

The shift to Glacier started with a Skyview net serve.

That was followed by three straight Falcon hitting errors, and three straight Glacier kills.

The next glance at the scoreboard showed Glacier right back in the set at 18-20.

"I saw a rally where we had some great defense. We kept digging and attacking, digging and attacking. You could see the confidence coming to our side - and I thought ‘we're going to be OK," Harkins said.

"We just kind of pulled it together," Boschee said.

The Falcons did get to set point first - they were up 24-21. But Glacier senior Rachel Cutler fought that off by pounding the ball down the line.

That put the serve in the capable hands of senior setter Paige Latimer, one of Class AA's top servers this past season. She put the Wolfpack up 25-24 with two aces in her next three attempts.

Skyview had one last gasp on Meghan Ballock's kill, but Boschee and Cutler put the set away from there.

And that was pretty much the last anyone heard from Skyview. Once Glacier opened those floodgates, it rolled.

Boschee finished the match with 18 kills. Cutler had 10. Both served two aces apiece.

Senior libber Cami Mathison powered the defense with 19 digs and Latimer had 33 assists.

But one of the biggest stats may have been Tiffany Marks' six blocks.

"The blockers were dominant at the net, so that opened the outside up," Boschee said.

Kills - Glacier 40 (Lexy Boschee 18, Rachel Cutler 10), Skyview 22 (Meghan Ballack 9), Assists - Glacier 34 (Paige Latimer 34), Skyview 21 ( Lindsey Trollope 21), Blocks - Glacier 7 (Tiffany Marks 6) Skyview 3 (Ballack 3), Digs - Glacier 65 (Cami Mathison 19, Boschee 12), Skyview 75 (Kaitlyn Round 18), Aces - Glacier 6 (Latimer 2, Cutler 2) , Skyview 3 (Ballack 2).